A Busy and Sunny Autumnal Week

The sunny, clear days have brought the barnacle geese in very close to the hides in the latter half of this week.

The week started dreich, with the hardy souls who turned up for our wild goose festival cycle ride getting a good soaking. However, they were rewarded with plenty of bird activity, including swathes of barnacle geese, a peregrine sitting out on the merse, and watching a ringtail hen harrier put up a few thousand oystercatchers.

The barnacle geese tended to stay out on the merse in the damp weather, but they have come further inland with the brighter, clearer weather. We have had amazing sightings from all over the reserve as they rotate the fields that they feed in, and on thursday afternoon 6000 congregated in the air above our fields. Our count on friday morning was 8600 barnacle geese, our biggest increase yet.

The clear moonlit night on thursday allowed one of our wardens the chance to count 70 whooper swans roosting on the folly pond overnight, also our biggest count on sight thus far. The sensible birds stay on site for much of the day, coming to our regular feeds, but others disperse across other fields locally. More named individuals have also returned, including 'sheldon whooper' and 'solway siren'.

A pair of gadwall have been seen on the teal pond regularly, which was recently cleared. It's great to be able to see more birds on this pond now, having really suffered from a natural build up of rushes and horsetail. We have also seen a goldcrest tittering along the saltcot loan this morning. Finally, a couple of visitors were treated to the view of a couple of foxes playing in the gorse near saltcot hide.

Photo credit: Alex Hillier

This week's high tide times are:

fri 22/10 - 0048, 1304
sat 23/10 - 0119, 1343
sun 24/10 - 0150, 1403

As well as this week's highlights, you are likely to see the following on the reserve:

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